MiniGendo

Preamble:

I recently had the opportunity to purchase a copy of Manga Studio 5 at a steep discount.  I had long been interested in the software after viewing a demo video and seeing the included 3D assets, which differed greatly from the assets included in Manga Studio 4.

After initial installation, I was surprised to find that I could not locate these assets.  A little bit of research later, I discovered that installation of the included Materials (which includes the 3D assets) was a secondary step.  I carried it out with haste.

That was when I noticed something odd.  I use a SSD, so I installed Manga Studio 5 on a secondary drive.  However, my C drive's space had decreased after the material installation.  I had never been prompted for where to install the materials, and had naively assumed that they would be installed with the application.  This was not the case.  The files were placed in the C:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio\

Conversing with Smith Micro's tech support was of little help.  They did not consider this issue to be a problem.  After a little prodding they admitted that others had requested that this be configurable, but that this was unlikely to happen any time in the near future.

That being the case, I spent 5 minutes experimenting and came up with a solution.

Instructions: How to move the Manga Studio 5 Materials Folder

Warning: It should be noted that Smith Micro will not support nonstandard installations.  They told me so during my conversation with tech support.  However, given my experience with tech support, you probably aren't missing much (I do not mean to disparage the individual tech support technicians I corresponded with, but instead to comment on the quality of responses they appear to be required to give).  Never the less, should you carry out these instructions and something else goes wrong, you will likely want to revert to the default locations if you wish to be completely honest with tech support.

1. Install Manga Studio 5.0. Install the included Materials. Instructions for these installations is beyond the scope of this document and may be found elsewhere.

2. Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio . This folder is hidden by default, so you may need to modify your folder settings to view hidden files. This modification is beyond the scope of this document and may be found elsewhere.

3. Copy the common folder to another location on your computer, be it another folder or another hard drive. Record the new file path of the common folder.

4. Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio\InstallPath . Modify the permissions of common.txt such that you can modify the file, if you do not already have such permissions.

5. Edit common.txt.
It should contain the following line:
"CommonPath"="C:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio\Common\";
Replace C:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio\Common\ with the new file path of the common folder recorded in step 3. For example:
"CommonPath"="F:\ProgramData\Smith Micro\Manga Studio\Common\";
Save the file.

6. Open Manga Studio 5 and test that the materials may still be accessed. If they are not accessible, revert the changes made here back to the original file locations and file contents.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns regarding these instructions please leave me a comment and I will do my best to address the matter in a timely fashion.

Against all odds, I find that I have been featured.

Japan: Christmas Lights minigendo.deviantart.com/art/J… is in a Christmas Spirit collection.  It can be seen here:
news.deviantart.com/article/64…

For what its worth, and its not much, I won it again this year.

Greetings,

I've thought I'd take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Turkey Day.  Even if you don't indulge, I hope the day finds you well and happy.

So, I figure that since I inevitably disagree with the winners of deviantart contests, imaginary ones where I win notwithstanding, I might as well get a little catharsis and just make my own fun, so to speak.  So I am.  Of the 2,000 contest submissions I took a look at, these were my top 3.  There are more than 2,000.  I don't deny that. Didn't see those, though.

invalidgriffin.deviantart.com/…
Winner: noise
A good choice of color, and actually designing the noise in a way commensurate with the design notes provided by square carried the day here.  Many people did entries that were an animal... and it had some tribal stuff.  Here the tribal stuff has replaced a limb and will affect how it moves.

tanoshii-chan.deviantart.com/a…
Winner: hero
Of the designs I saw, this one reminded me most of the square provided concept sketches. Also, her hat is eating her head.  I love it.  I want a hat that eats my head.  I wouldn't wear it of course, not wanting my soft brain meats to be devoured, but still I'd store it somewhere.  It might for example consume ... my hatrack!

eeenseok.deviantart.com/art/VI…
Winner: villain
To a certain extent, I feel like this may belong more to kingdom hearts than to WEWY.  However, the concept of a dark lolipop is a bit too amusing to let go unrewarded.  Also there's a grim specter of death, but mostly this wins on dark loli power.